


Good and Pretty

by toyhto



Category: True Detective
Genre: 1995, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Rust is still Crash when they meet, Rust/Ginger with dubious consent maybe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:21:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23998906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toyhto/pseuds/toyhto
Summary: “You’ve got to start dating nicer men."
Relationships: Rustin "Rust" Cohle/Martin "Marty" Hart
Comments: 16
Kudos: 76





	Good and Pretty

**Author's Note:**

> 95% of my Crash-headcanons come from the lovely [The Last Time I Saw You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2036904/chapters/4421763) by scioscribe. If you haven't read it yet, what're you even doing with your life, and if you have, you MIGHT think this story is influenced by that one because it IS.

”Iron Crusaders?” Quesada asked, his eyes sharp. “Are you sure?”  
  
“Yeah,” Marty said and pulled his shoulders back. He had slept for maybe three hours and he couldn’t tell if it was the lack of sleep or the hangover that was making him feel like crap. Probably both. After he had found Tyro Weems last night, he had spent at least an hour driving around. Then he had got back to the motel and kept on drinking.  
  
He hated the goddamn motel. He hated the tiny room with cheap decoration, hated the orange/brown wallpaper and the smell of dust and old curtains. He hated that there were already his things lying around, like he was going to stay. But most of all, he hated himself.  
  
“Something wrong?” Quesada asked.  
  
“Nothing,” Marty said. _Shit._ He could do this. He could stop thinking about Maggie and get this shit done. He had nothing else left, only this case. He could as well focus on it.  
  
Only, what if he talked to Maggie one more time -  
  
“Great,” Quesada said, “because there’s someone you should meet.”  
  
  
**  
  
  
The sun was already going down. Marty turned the volume on the radio on. He wasn’t tired, not exactly, it was more like he had been tired some time ago and now he was past it. If he closed his eyes for a minute, he’d fall onto his face and probably start crying.  
  
He bit his lip and tried to focus on the song, _I fell in to a burning ring of fire, I went down down down, and the flames went higher._ Maybe he should have called Maggie and let her know he’d be a bit hard to reach for a while. But it sounded like an excuse even in his own head, it sounded a lot like the lies he had told Maggie for months now. And he couldn’t tell the whole truth: that he was going to East Texas to meet with an undercover cop.  
  
“ _He’s been working undercover for almost four years now,”_ Quesada had told him. “ _Something to do with the dug cartels. From what I hear, he’s difficult to handle.”  
  
“Four years?” _Marty had asked. No one did that kind of a job that long.  
  
_“Don’t ask me,”_ Quesada had said. _“Just try to put up with him. We need him with this._ ”  
  
The sun had already set down when Marty finally pulled the car into a parking lot of McDonald’s right after the state border. It was Thursday evening, a lot of families and teenagers. Elvis was on the radio.  
  
Marty left the headlights on and waited. After a few minutes, someone parked a red truck two slots away from him, then got out of the car, looked around and walked at his direction. Marty narrowed his eyes. The man didn’t look like an undercover cop, he looked like someone who’d try to pick a fight in a bar in the late hours of the night and then knock your teeth out your mouth. But then again, maybe he wouldn’t have been still alive after four years if he had looked like a cop.  
  
Marty undid the lock and then kept his left hand on the wheel and reached for the gun with his right, and the man opened the side door and looked straight at him. “Hart?”  
  
Marty almost said _no._ “Yeah.”  
  
The man got into the car and closed the door. “Not here. Go somewhere else.”  
  
“Like where?”  
  
“I don’t know. Another parking lot.”  
  
“Alright,” Marty said and started driving. “You think someone’s following you?”  
  
“Hope not,” the man said and lit the cigarette. Rustin Cohle, that was his name. He kept glancing around as if he was expecting someone to shoot him through the window glass. He didn’t seem exactly sober, which made sense. Quesada hadn’t said anything about drug addiction but surely you couldn’t fake that for four years.  
  
“Stop staring,” Cohle said.  
  
Marty blinked and returned his gaze to the road. He had tried not to be obvious about it.  
  
“Tell me about the case,” Cohle said, glancing at Marty.  
  
“I’ve got the file. I’ll show you when we’ve –“  
  
Cohle turned the radio off, cutting the song mid-sentence. “They didn’t tell me shit. Just where to meet you.”  
  
“Well, I think I’m supposed to tell you. So, what we need is that we need to find this man who’s cooking for your gang. Reggie Ledoux.”  
  
“He killed someone?” Cohle said in a blank voice, like his thoughts were somewhere else.  
  
“So we think.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
Marty bit his lip. Well, he could tell Cohle everything now and show the file later. “Dora Lange. I’ve got the file in my bag. She’s –“  
  
“This one?” Cohle said. He had taken Marty’s bag from the backseat and had the file in his hand.  
  
“Don’t go through my stuff.”  
  
“Sorry,” Cohle said. He sounded mildly bored. “A crown?”  
  
“Yeah,” Marty said. Cohle was looking at the picture of the body in the fields. Shit, Marty had been looking at that picture for hours probably, just to figure out something he might’ve missed, and it still made his stomach feel uneasy. “We’re thinking that it’s some kind of an occultist ritual murder, someone trying to make a scene to, I don’t know, probably just to terrify people.”  
  
“Occultist?”  
  
“Yeah. And the girl, Dora Lange, a prostitute. At first we thought it was some kind of a revenge, like –“  
  
“No,” Cohle said, “no, it’s not personal. He’s making a spectacle. He’s showing off. He’s planned this and done this before, probably many times. The girl could be anyone.”  
  
Marty cleared his throat. “Well, we found another similar case, Rianne Olivier. Reggie Ledoux was her boyfriend. That’s why we need to find him.”  
  
“You aren’t telling me everything.”  
  
“Of course I’m not telling you everything,” Marty said, “I just started, and I’m driving and I’m goddamn hungry. Are you hungry?”  
  
“Go there,” Cohle said, nodding at the window. There was another McDonalds, standing at the side of the road like a landmark.  
  
Cohle waited in the car while Marty went in and bought them two of the biggest meal they had. When he got back to the car, Cohle was watching him with sharp wide eyes when he gave the man the brown paper bag and told him to eat. Well, he supposed Cohle hadn’t properly seen his face yet. And he surely looked like hell. But Cohle looked worse.  
  
“It’s not poisoned,” he said, when Cohle was still staring at his hamburger. “So, you’ve been with this gang for a long time or what?”  
  
“Long enough.”  
  
“I thought you weren’t supposed to do that for more than -“  
  
“Yeah,” Cohle said. He started with the hamburger and now he looked like a man who hadn’t known he’d been starving. “They stopped counting after I did something.”  
  
“You did something?”  
  
Cohle glanced at him. He had mayonnaise on his chin and a bruising next to his left eye that didn’t look old. “Killed someone.”  
  
Marty frowned. “You –“  
  
“Stop asking,” Cohle said, “you don’t want to know. Nobody does. Tell me about this case.”  
  
“I’m supposed to tell you about Reggie –“  
  
“Tell me about the girl,” Cohle said. He put the rest of the hamburger back in the paper bag and seemed to forget about it in a second, his focus on the case file again. He took the picture of Dora Lange and held it in his hand. It was the one that had been taken in the morgue, and Cohle was staring at it like he tried to see something in the dead girl’s eyes. “Tell me all the details. Everything. Tell me how you got to Reggie Ledoux.”  
  
Marty kept quiet for a few seconds, just to let Cohle know that he was in charge here, even though he wasn’t sure about that. And Cohle didn’t even seem to notice the silence, like a clock inside his head was used to having gaps in time. He looked like he would start a conversation with the picture any moment now. But maybe he was just happy for the distraction. Maybe he had something else to think about, something other than whatever it was that he usually spent his days doing.  
  
Marty cleared his throat and told Cohle everything he could. He supposed that was alright, because Quesada hadn’t told him not to. And after a while, Cohle started filling in the sentences for him, guessing what he was going to say, throwing smartass comments about things Marty hadn’t even said yet. It was fucking annoying, and kind of mesmerizing. Marty couldn’t imagine this man being buried in an undercover job for years.  
  
In the end, he realized he hadn’t finished his fries and they’d gone cold. He ate them anyway. Then he waited when Cohle ate his. They were still in the parking lot but in the furthest corner, covered by shadows and the families walking past them, tired adults and smiling kids. Marty couldn’t bear to think his. Cohle didn’t seem to notice there were other people in the world, only sometimes he glanced around like he was expecting an ambush and then settled down again.  
  
“What’s it like?”  
  
Cohle flinched. He had a picture of Rianne Olivier in his hand. “What?”  
  
“What you do.”  
  
Cohle snorted.  
  
“I’m serious.”  
  
“Then you’re a fucking idiot. You don’t want to know what it’s like.”  
  
“Maybe I do.”  
  
“Alright,” Cohle said and leaned towards Marty. He bit his lip and didn’t move, even though Cohle was too close to him now, smelling of alcohol and tobacco and sweat and something else. He was looking at Marty like he couldn’t decide what to do with him. “I can’t tell you what it’s like, because it’s obvious that you wouldn’t understand.”  
  
“Why?” he heard himself asking. “Why is it obvious?”  
  
“Because you asked,” Cohle said. He was almost smiling a little, or maybe it was a sneer.  
  
Marty blinked. He was a people person, had always been. He knew how to talk to people. And there was something odd in the way Cohle was staring at him, like he was looking for something in Marty’s eyes. “You want coffee or something?”  
  
Cohle looked like Marty had slapped him on the face. He pulled back, leaned against the back of the seat and took a deep breath. “Just take me back to my car. Or somewhere near and I’ll walk.”  
  
“I’m not in a hurry.”  
  
“I am. I need to get back before they start wondering.”  
  
Marty bit back everything he wanted to say. “Okay.”  
  
On the way back to the first McDonald’s, Cohle was quiet, just kept looking through the pictures in the case file. Maybe he was having a silent conversation with the dead girls. Or maybe he was thinking about how Marty didn’t know anything. Marty opened his mouth for a few times, to say something, anything, and then he glanced at Cohle: slouched shoulders, the bruising, a nasty scar on the throat like someone had held a blade there, the tense mouth, and the eyes. Cohle had obviously been a good-looking man once. Four years ago, probably.  
  
He gave Cohle his number and Cohle memorized it in a few seconds. Then he said good night and Cohle got out of the car and left without answering.  
  
Marty drove back to the motel. He still hated the wallpaper, but he was too tired to notice it now. He kicked the shoes off and somehow managed to get rid of his clothes, and then he slept until in the morning Quesada called him and asked him where the fuck he was.  
  
  
**  
  
  
Cohle called him three days later. It was early in the morning, too early to decide whether Cohle had woken up for the phone call or if he hadn’t gone to sleep yet. Marty hadn’t. He’d spent most of the night in the car parked at his home street, half-hoping that Maggie would see the car from the window and come tell him to fuck off, so he could talk to her.  
  
“The same place,” Cohle said in the phone. “At ten.”  
  
“In the morning?”  
  
“Yeah. Can you make it?”  
  
“Alright,” Marty said and Cohle hung up.  
  
Marty tried to sleep but couldn’t, then tried to jerk off but couldn’t do that, either. He was still too drunk. Thinking about Maggie made him feel like he was drowning, and thinking about Lisa wanted him to hit himself in the face. He tried that too, but it didn’t help.  
  
He slept for maybe three hours and then started driving.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“You look like shit,” Cohle said as he opened the side door.  
  
“Here,” Marty said and handed him the coffee in a cardboard cup. “The food’s on the backseat.”  
  
Cohle stared at the coffee and then at him but took the cup. Marty had finished his already but hadn’t been able to make himself eat anything. The coffee had helped a little, though. He didn’t feel like throwing up anymore.  
  
“You the best they had?” Cohle asked and drank of his coffee. Marty blinked. “To catch a serial killer?”  
  
“Two women don’t make him a serial killer,” Marty said. Cohle looked a bit disoriented about the coffee. “I’m not usually like this. I just didn’t sleep much.”  
  
“Sure,” Cohle said, glancing over his shoulder at the backseat, where the food was in the paper bags.  
  
“I’ve got trouble at home,” Marty said, squeezing his hands around the wheel. The radio was on, but the volume was so low he couldn’t recognize the song. God, he missed Maggie. “Had a thing with someone and then, I don’t know, got a little jealous of her. She didn’t like it.”  
  
Cohle reached over to the backseat. He smelled of cigarettes but also faintly of soap, like he’d taken a shower before he came to meet Marty. He grabbed the paper bags and kept them in his lap, then pulled out two hamburgers.  
  
“I didn’t eat yet,” Marty said. “She kicked me out.”  
  
“Your wife?” Cohle said and put one of the hamburgers in Marty’s lap, then unwrapped the other.  
  
“No. Yeah, I mean, yeah. But this girl I was… I didn’t want her to be seeing other men.”  
  
“That’s just bullshit, man,” Cohle said, eating the hamburger.  
  
“Yeah. I know. And then Maggie heard about that and left me.” He took a deep breath and took his hamburger. He could as well try to eat something. “I think she’s going to come around. I just need to… figure out something.”  
  
Cohle didn’t say anything.  
  
“Right?”  
  
“Not my fucking business. We should go somewhere else, this is too close.”  
  
“Too close to what?”  
  
“Just drive.”  
  
Marty drove for maybe ten minutes and then pulled over to a small side road and stopped the car. He took a piss at the side of the road and then came back but left the door open. It was going to be a hot day and he had a fucking headache, the same one he’d had since he’d come home and found his suitcase in the foyer with Maggie’s note. Cohle was eating fries now, glanced at each one before he put it in his mouth and licked his fingers after. He looked different than at the last time. Maybe it was the light. The bruising on the side of his eye was bad and he looked tired like he hadn’t slept in a fucking year or something, but it was easy to see that he hadn’t always looked like that. If someone made him eat and sleep and, well, probably cut off the drugs, he’d look like a goddamn movie star.  
  
“Don’t like my face or what?”  
  
Marty blinked and pulled his gaze away. “No, it’s not… someone beat you up?”  
  
“It happens,” Cohle said, his voice perfectly steady. “You want to hear about Ledoux or not?”  
  
Marty swallowed. “Yeah. Of course.”  
  
“It’s going to be tricky,” Cohle said and leaned against the back of the seat. Marty made a point not to stare at his throat. “Seems like he rarely deals with anyone in person. A suspicious piece of shit. Or just thinks he’s too important, I can’t tell yet.”  
  
“You haven’t seen him?”  
  
“No. My… my informant, he’s not seen Ledoux either.”  
  
“Your…”  
  
“Likes me more than the rest of the bastards,” Cohle said, glancing at him. “Easier to make one person to trust you a little than the whole fucking gang.”  
  
“But they’re –“  
  
“So, Ledoux,” Cohle said, took a cigarette and lit it, then opened the side door. “Apparently he usually sends his man, I don’t know, his assistant. Couldn’t get a name. Maybe the next time. From what it sounds to me I’d guess no one knows where to find them, except them. Are you serious about getting to Ledoux?”  
  
“Yeah,” Marty said, “of course. We think he might’ve killed –“  
  
“Then we need a plan,” Cohle said, glancing at him like he didn’t know what Marty thought of _plans._ “It’s going to be tricky. And it’s going to take a while. I don’t necessarily want to get shot in the head because they figured this thing out.”  
  
“Yeah, that’s not… fucking hell, Cohle.”  
  
“Crash,” Cohle said and then blinked at Marty. “Sorry. It’s been a long time.”  
  
“You aren’t going to get shot,” Marty said. He didn’t know exactly whom he was angry at. “I’ll make sure of that.”  
  
Cohle almost laughed, only it sounded like he had something stuck in his throat.  
  
“I mean,” Marty said, “you should be careful.”  
  
“No shit,” Cohle said. “Listen, when I said that we need a plan… with these bastards, plans always change.”  
  
“Yeah, I get that.”  
  
“No, you don’t. Just don’t get your feelings hurt if I end up calling you in the middle of a family dinner.”  
  
Marty bit his lip. And he had just told Cohle about Maggie. “Fuck you, man.”  
  
“No, you don’t want that,” Cohle said in an easy tone. “Thanks for the hamburger.”  
  
Marty shook his head. “Any time, asshole.”  
  
“Kind of comes with the job,” Cohle said and took a deep breath. “I’m going to figure out a way to get to Ledoux. I’ve got a few ideas.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Don’t want you to get too excited too soon. I’ll tell you when I actually have something to tell.”  
  
Marty nodded. “You can just talk to me, you know. I’d like to know what’s going on.”  
  
Cohle turned to look at him. He waited for something like _no, you don’t_ or _you don’t have a fucking clue_ or just a sneer.  
  
“Alright,” Cohle said.  
  
Marty drove him back to the McDonalds. Cohle got out of the car without a goodbye and took Marty’s half-eaten fries with him. Marty stared at his own hands clenching the wheel for a few minutes and then went in and ordered more fries. The ones Cohle had taken had been cold anyway.  
  
  
**  
  
  
Maggie let him come see the girls but didn’t talk to him. He ignored it the best he could and focused on the girls, who hugged him and talked to him almost like nothing had happened. But every time he glanced at Maggie, she was looking at him like he was an old photograph or something. When he left, he told her he loved her, and it felt like reading a script, which didn’t make sense at all because he meant it.  
  
He drank too much that night and wrote her a letter but thank god didn’t send it.  
  
Things being how they were, it was no wonder that he started waiting for a phone call from Cohle. There wasn’t much else going on. He was trying to work the case, of course, but nothing new came up, and he was having hard time trying to concentrate and also trying to hide from everyone at the station that he couldn’t concentrate. So, he tried to trick himself by thinking of Cohle. If he thought about Cohle’s problems, maybe he wouldn’t think about his own.  
  
“But isn’t there a plan to get him out?” he asked Quesada one day, when he was missing the kids like someone had cut his arm off or something. “He’s been working as undercover for four years. Surely he can’t keep that up forever.”  
  
“I don’t really know about that, Marty,” Quesada asked, probably wondering why Marty was asking.  
  
“But,” Marty said and took a deep breath, “but don’t you think, if he helps us out with this, you could, I don’t know, figure out if –“  
  
“He’s not our man, Marty. He’s working for the taskforce in Texas.”  
  
“Yeah,” Marty said, “yeah, I know, but don’t you think –“  
  
Quesada listened to him for almost five minutes and then told him to get back to his job. He did. But the next day, Quesada asked him to come to his office and told him he’d asked about Cohle.  
  
“He was involved in something,” Quesada said, “they wouldn’t say what it was exactly but my guess is that he killed someone. Had a choice, to keep working as undercover or go to jail.”  
  
“That’s a shitty choice.”  
  
“Well, it was a shitty thing he did.”  
  
“But he’s not…” Marty frowned. “You haven’t seen him, have you? He looks like he’s about to crack.”  
  
Quesada didn’t look surprised at all.  
  
“Like it’s breaking him apart,” Marty said, “the job. Like he doesn’t remember who he –“  
  
“Marty,” Quesada said, “I know you’re having some kind of a personal trouble at the moment, but stick to the job. The only reason why you’re dealing with this man is that he’s going to get us to the suspect. Don’t bother yourself with worrying about his job.”  
  
Marty took a deep breath. “Okay. Alright.”  
  
  
**  
  
  
_“Somewhere else this time,”_ Cohle had said at the phone early in the morning. _“There’s this diner five miles down the road, meet me there._ ” He had said the diner’s name twice, and then there had been voices in the background, someone talking, and Cohle had hung up.  
  
Marty was at the diner half an hour early, wondering what he’d do if Cohle didn’t show up. He ordered coffee and pancakes and only realized after a while that he was flirting at the waitress. He tried to stop and couldn’t remember how. But it was easy to forget the waitress and think about Cohle. Maybe he should call someone. If Cohle didn’t show up. Surely he couldn’t go looking for the man, because he didn’t have a goddamn idea where to look, and if he had, that’d only make things worse. He should call Quesada and make him contact the taskforce and… and they’d probably do nothing, and _shit_ how tired he was.  
  
Cohle came five minutes late. Marty saw him through the windows and asked the waitress for another set of coffee and pancakes. With chocolate, and whipped cream. Everyone liked chocolate and whipped cream.  
  
“Morning,” he said when Cohle walked to him and sat down across the table from him. “You came.”  
  
Cohle frowned and lit a cigarette. The bruising next to his eye was looking better.  
  
“Heard someone talking in the background,” Marty said, made a vague gesture with his fork and ended up dropping whipped cream onto the table. “I thought maybe you had… that maybe they heard you when you were talking to me.”  
  
Cohle was looking at him like that didn’t make sense at all.  
  
“I was worried, man,” he said and focused on the pancakes. It was easier to eat now when Cohle was here.  
  
Cohle just stared at him for a second, then seemed to remember something. “I need you to get me coke.”  
  
Marty had his mouth full of whipped cream. He tried to swallow. “What?”  
  
“And make it good,” Cohle said, leaning back and watching him, “it’s got to be good. Quality shit.”  
  
“I… _what?_ ” He had kind of known Cohle was addicted, had to be, but…  
  
“That’s how we get our man,” Cohle said. He wasn’t exactly smiling, but there was something in his eyes, a glint like he knew what was going on inside Marty’s head and he thought it was funny. “I’m going to try to make a deal with him. Coke for meth. But I need coke for that.”  
  
Marty cleared his throat.  
  
“They already think something’s going on with me,” Cohle said, “Ginger, my… he thinks I’ve got something in my mind. Probably thinks it’s a woman… but I’m going to use that. He thinks something’s going on and I’m going to make him think it’s me trying to make a deal with our cook. He’s going to want in if he thinks there’s enough money in it. So that’s why the coke has to be good.”  
  
“That doesn’t make sense at all,” Marty said.  
  
That was when the waitress came with Cohle’s pancakes and coffee. Marty thanked her and then ignored the look on Cohle’s face.  
  
“What the fuck’s this?”  
  
“Did you want something else?” Marty asked, looking through the window. It was a pretty day.  
  
“No, it’s alright,” Cohle said, “yeah, I’m going to be expecting chocolate and whipped cream from now on every time we meet.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
Cohle chewed on his lower lip. “You don’t have to buy me dinner, you know.”  
  
“I’m a gentleman,” Marty said, rubbing his chin, “and this is breakfast. I don’t know how to get you coke.”  
  
“From the evidence room,” Cohle said.  
  
“The –“  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Yeah,” Cohle said, tried to put a whole pancake in his mouth at once and seemed surprised that he couldn’t. He had whipped cream on the corner of his mouth. He swallowed the pancake hastily enough that Marty was a little worried he’d choke on it, and then he licked his lips. Seemed surprised of the whipped cream, too. “I hear you like to think you’re a gentleman, but you can’t get a thing like this done by following the rules.”  
  
Marty frowned.  
  
“You could ask your boss if you can have a bit of good quality coke. See how well that goes.”  
  
“I can’t just –“  
  
“That’s my best idea,” Cohle said, “and trust me, I know I don’t look like much these days, but I’m not stupid. And I know how these assholes work. This is my best idea about how to get to Ledoux.”  
  
“But…” Marty took a deep breath. Cohle had whipped cream on his chin again. He blinked at Marty and then brushed it away with his thumb. Marty blinked.  
  
“Just say it.”  
  
_Shit._ “How do I know you aren’t going to just use it?”  
  
“You don’t,” Cohle said easily. “Maybe you get me good coke and I disappear. There’s no way you can know I won’t do that.”  
  
“You wouldn’t, though.”  
  
Cohle took another bite of the pancake.  
  
“But you are… you _could…_ ”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Just coke or –“  
  
Cohle glanced at him but didn’t ask why Marty was so interested in his addictions. “Well, I also drink too much. But, yeah, mainly coke.”  
  
“Were you… already, before you…”  
  
“No.” Cohle caught the rest of the whipped cream still on the plate with his fork. “Shit, this was good. I didn’t remember.”  
  
“Want more? Because I –“  
  
“No, this is enough. But you should buy me flower, too, for the next time.”  
  
Marty smiled at him. Cohle didn’t smile back, but that was alright. Clearly he liked Marty’s company. And he had liked the pancakes. That was good.  
  
“I thought I could do this job without starting,” Cohle said, and it took Marty a few seconds to remember what they’d been talking about. “That worked for some time. A few months. But, yeah, it’s pretty difficult to fake a drug addiction. And there’d be absolutely no reason for me to hang around with these guys if I wasn’t using.”  
  
“But don’t you…” Marty bit his lip. “It’s going to be hell for you, coming out from it.”  
  
“No reason to worry about that,” Cohle said. “I don’t think anyone’s planning for me to quit this job anytime soon.”  
  
“You’ve been at it for four years. That’s not supposed to –“  
  
“Are you going to do it or not?”  
  
_Bloody hell._ “Yeah.”  
  
“You’re going to get me the coke.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“When?”  
  
“When do you need it?”  
  
Cohle stared at him for a moment. “In a week. Shouldn’t drag this out, Ginger’s getting restless.”  
  
“Ginger’s –“  
  
“Don’t want to talk about Ginger,” Cohle said and finished his coffee, then glanced at the cup like he was surprised it was empty. “Listen, after I get the coke, things might happen quickly. I don’t know.”  
  
“You can call me anytime.”  
  
“I’m not worried,” Cohle said, watching him. “I’m not really expecting to come out of this job alive. And a bullet in the head, well, that’s a better way to go than most. But if I end up in a ditch somewhere, you’re going to need another way to get to Ledoux.”  
  
Marty bit his lip too hard. “Stop talking like that.”  
  
“You want me to sugarcoat it for you?” Cohle asked, kind of smiling now. Marty wanted to punch him on the face. “Alright. If things start happening, it’d be useful if you’d be around and not hours away. It’d be useful for both your job and the continuance of my existence, which I think has considerably less value.”  
  
“Fuck you,” Marty said.  
  
“Yeah, fuck you too,” Cohle said and nodded at the empty plate. “And thanks for this.”  
  
“You’re welcome. You don’t need to be a fucking asshole about everything, you know.”  
  
“Yeah, I do,” Cohle said and stood up.  
  
“I’m going to get a motel room,” Marty said, “somewhere near. So that if you need me, I’ll be there.”  
  
“Always a gentleman,” Cohle said and left.  
  
Marty drove back so angry he couldn’t listen to country music on the radio. But when he got to the station, took a quick shower and finally sat at his desk, he just felt tired. He wasn’t sure if Cohle was trying to piss him off or warn him about something, or maybe both. He didn’t need to be warned but the pissing off part was working very well.  
  
He told Quesada Cohle had a plan and that he’d go to Texas after a week and stay there. Quesada agreed eventually. Marty called Maggie and told her he’d be out of town for a while, for the job. It sounded like an excuse like he had thought, but he realized he didn’t care much. It was too late anyway. Maggie let him come see the girls before he left. He talked to Maggie about the weather, and it seemed to go well. Also, he hated the orange/brown wallpaper in his motel room a lot less now that he knew he was going to get rid of it.  
  
Later that week, he got a bag of coke from the evidence room. It was surprisingly easy. They really needed a better system.  
  
  
**  
  
  
It had been raining the whole day. He picked Cohle up at the parking lot of Walmart and started driving. Cohle took his leather jacket off and elbowed Marty at the shoulder in the process, then said he was sorry. Underneath, he had a grey tank top and impressive arms for a coke addict. Marty had quit the gym soon after the girls had been born with a vague realization that he’d never get arms like that, no matter what he did. He supposed he was a relatively good-looking guy anyway. With a big dick. Surely that counted as something.  
  
“Fucking weather,” Cohle said.  
  
“Yeah,” Marty said. “Food’s on the backseat.”  
  
Cohle glanced at him but reached over from between the seats. What he pulled back was a red rose. “You crazy or something?”  
  
Marty bit his lip. “Don’t you like it?”  
  
“Of course I _like_ it,” Cohle said and placed the rose in his lap. “And people say romance is dead.”  
  
“Not when they’re with me, they don’t say that.”  
  
Cohle took the pizza box from the backseat and opened it. “Have you talked to your boss about this? About this careful strategy to seduce me so that I’ll do whatever you want?”  
  
“Is it working?” Marty asked. He was smiling but there was nothing he could do about that.  
  
“Of course it’s working,” Cohle said. “You got the coke?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Good. Where’re we going?”  
  
“My motel room,” Marty said. “I’m not going to hand drugs over to an addict in a public place.” He made a point not to look at Cohle’s face after that, because he was pretty sure he didn’t want to see what was going on in there.  
  
He kept his eyes on the road and Cohle started eating the pizza. After a while he realized he had been waiting Cohle to say something about the motel room, something that’d make it a joke. Like with the rose. But Cohle kept quiet and Marty bit his lip and told himself all this made sense.  
  
He hated the motel room much less than the last one, maybe because he was here for the work and not because he had ruined his marriage. He locked the door, walked to the bathroom and had a glass of water, and Cohle sat down on the bed and kept on eating the pizza, but there was something sharp and restless in his movements now. He had left the rose in the car.  
  
“Here,” Marty said and gave him the coke, wrapped tight in a plastic bag.  
  
Cohle took it. For a second he looked hungry and then he blinked.  
  
“I’m not judging you,” Marty said. He was maybe lying a little but not much.  
  
“I am,” Cohle said and put the coke in his pocket, then covered the spot with his arm like he thought he might just drop it. “Can’t stop that or else I’m going to forget who I used to be.” He glanced at Marty. “The pizza’s good.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
“You wanted me to share or what?”  
  
Marty shook his head. “I already ate mine. Don’t worry, just eat it.”  
  
“I’m not worrying.”  
  
“You should be. How old are you?”  
  
Cohle seemed amused. “Thirty-one.”  
  
“You look older.”  
  
“Your flirting’s getting sloppy.”  
  
“I’m not flirting,” Marty said automatically. Then he couldn’t figure out what to say. He wanted to keep on flirting.  
  
“So,” Cohle said, licking the grease from his fingers. “I’ll drop the idea to Ginger, he already thinks I’m keeping something from him so it should be easy to make him think he got it from me his way.”  
  
“His way?”  
  
“Don’t you worry about that. He’s not stupid but he likes money a bit too much, so I’m going to use that. I need him to make a contact with Ledoux. I can’t do that, I’m too fucking low in the food chain.”  
  
“Alright. Just…”  
  
“Yeah, honey, I’ll be careful,” Cohle said and took a cigarette. “Do you mind?”  
  
Marty shook his head. “And then what?”  
  
Cohle lit the cigarette. “We’ll see how it goes. I’d think, I meet with Ledoux, you follow him to wherever he’s hiding, you call the back-up, get him arrested, we never meet again.”  
  
Marty flinched. _Holy shit._ And Cohle was watching him, so it was too late to try to hide his reaction.  
  
“Or what?” Cohle asked in a blank voice.  
  
“We need to get you out,” Marty said. He knew he probably sounded naïve, but he didn’t care.  
  
Cohle stared at him for a few seconds and then stood up. “I’ll call you when something happens. You going to drive me back or should I take a bus?”  
  
“I’ll drive you. We’re going to get you out.”  
  
“Hart –“  
  
“My name’s Marty,” he said.  
  
“Alright,” Cohle said and stepped to him. Cohle was taller than him, so he had to raise his chin to look the man in the eyes. He did. He didn’t fucking care if Cohle had a death wish or something or if he was just being goddamn stubborn about the whole thing. No one was supposed to do a job like that for more than eleven months and he had been at it for four years. He was going to get out after this. “Marty,” Cohle said at his face. He sounded tired. “I don’t need you to save me.”  
  
“Well, you obviously aren’t trying to do it yourself,” Marty said.  
  
Cohle took a deep breath.  
  
“Come on,” Marty said, put a hand on Cohle’s shoulder and ignored the way the man froze. “I’ll drive you back. Unless you want to stop for a coffee first.”  
  
“No,” Cohle said, “I should get back. They’re going to wonder.”  
  
Marty patted him on the shoulder before letting go. He drove Cohle back to the parking lot. The rose was still on the passenger seat when he got back to the motel. He stared at it for a few seconds and then took it with him.  
  
  
**  
  


He woke up in the middle of the night to someone banging on the door. The gun was on the bedside table with the phone and the rose. He took it and got onto his feet.  
  
“It’s me,” Cohle said through the door.  
  
Marty froze for a second, then walked to the door and yanked it open. Cohle glanced at the gun in his hand and walked in, and Marty locked the door. His heart was in his throat.  
  
“Nice outfit,” Cohle said and walked around in the room.  
  
“What’re you doing here?” Marty asked, trying to find some clothes. He had left his t-shirt on the chair last night. He put it on and realized it was inside out.  
  
“You’re right, it’s too hot in here,” Cohle said and took off his jacket. “Sorry.”  
  
“You alright? Did something –“  
  
“No,” Cohle said, pushed his hands into his pockets and stood still for maybe three seconds before he started walking around again. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have come. I wasn’t… didn’t plan this.”  
  
“I don’t mind it. But –“  
  
Cohle laughed. “You don’t _mind._ Of course you don’t mind. That’s just… what the hell?”  
  
“Yeah,” Marty said and put the gun back on the bedside table. It took him a few seconds to realize Cohle wasn’t staring at it but the rose instead. “So, you aren’t in trouble or anything?”  
  
“I’ve been in trouble for…” Cohle took a sharp breath. “No.”  
  
“Great. High?”  
  
Cohle shook his head but it didn’t seem like a _no._ “A little. Should I –“  
  
“You aren’t going anywhere,” Marty said and took a deep breath. Apparently it was two o’clock in the morning. “Are you hungry?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Cohle said. He had stopped beside the bedside table but was swaying on his feet like it was impossible for him to stay still. He leaned his head back and watched Marty. “You going to take me to dinner?”  
  
“I’ve got crackers. I thought I might get hungry.”  
  
“You don’t need to feed me, you know,” Cohle said, when Marty was looking for the box of crackers in his bag.  
  
“Yeah, I know.” He found the box and gave it to Cohle. “Just eat.”  
  
“I didn’t come here for this,” Cohle said, opened the box and took a cracker. He ate it like he didn’t care what exactly was in his mouth.  
  
“Is someone going to come looking for you? Should I be worried?”  
  
“No. I don’t think so. Ginger thinks I’ve got a woman.”  
  
Marty nodded. _Shit._ He wished he would have had his pants on for this conversation.  
  
“You want me to leave?” Cohle asked for the second time. His voice was quiet now and he had stopped swaying. That only made him more intimidating. His eyes were wide and stuck on Marty, and he was pressing his right thumb against his left wrist, like taking the pulse.  
  
“No,” Marty said.  
  
“You sure? Because I could. I could just go. We’d pretend that I never came here.”  
  
Marty shook his head.  
  
“Because I think,” Cohle said and took a deep breath, “I _think_ you don’t mean any of that shit you say to me. The only thing you actually mean is when you tell me you want to get me out, and that’s just because you’re the kind of person who can’t think there’re things that can’t be fixed. That just doesn’t fit into your head. But about everything else…”  
  
“You don’t know me very well.”  
  
“Really? Am I wrong?”  
  
“Yeah,” Marty said and licked his lips. _Goddamn._ “Who’s Ginger?”  
  
Cohle blinked.  
  
“Because if he thinks he owns you –“  
  
“That’s how it works. Here, in my life.”  
  
“No,” Marty said.  
  
“How do you think I’ve stayed alive in this job for four years?” Cohle asked. He looked tired now, more tired than Marty had ever seen him. His eyes were wondering a little, and then he seemed to remember the crackers and took another. “I’m clever,” he said, eating the cracker with a look on his face like he couldn’t taste it, “but I’m not that clever. No one’s that clever. I need someone there who wants me alive.”  
  
Marty chewed on his lower lip. He didn’t like this, he didn’t like this at all.  
  
“Because he likes to fuck me,” Cohle said and frowned at the next cracker. Then he glanced at Marty. “And besides, nothing makes a man easier to handle than that kind of a secret.”  
  
Marty took a deep breath. “Fuck. That’s –“  
  
“Yeah,” Cohle said and sat down on the edge of the bed, put the box of crackers on the bedside table next to the rose and then rested his elbows against his knees. He looked much less dangerous like that, leaning forward with his shoulders slouched and his gaze somewhere around Marty’s bare knees. Maybe he was doing that on purpose.  
  
Marty cleared his throat. His heart was beating like crazy and he didn’t know what to do with his hands, and he had this stupid urge to say that he hadn’t meant this to happen. But if Cohle believed him, it’d only show him that Marty didn’t know what he was doing. With the food, and the rose, and all the flirting.  
  
“That what you’re doing with me?” he asked instead. “Now?”  
  
Cohle shook his head and took a packet of cigarettes from the pocket of his jacket, still not looking Marty in the eyes. “No. Just… wanted something else for a change.”  
  
“Something else?”  
  
“I had a fight with Ginger. Kind of. I told you, he thinks I’ve got something going on. Doesn’t exactly like that I’m not saying what it is.”  
  
“Did he –“  
  
“Nothing unusual. That’s not why I came.” Cohle glanced at him, then dropped his gaze again and lit the cigarette. “I just started driving. Didn’t exactly mean to come here.”  
  
“Well,” Marty said slowly, then walked to the bed and sat down next to Cohle. The mattress dipped under his weight. He bit his lip. “I already knew you like my sense of humor.”  
  
“It’s not about that,” Cohle said.  
  
“Really?” Marty asked, trying to keep his voice light. He was very good at it when he wanted to. “The gentleman thing, then? Wouldn’t have guessed.”  
  
“No,” Cohle said and then snorted. “Fuck you, it’s the fucking gentleman thing. It’s just, it’s been a long time since I’ve had someone to talk to who doesn’t look at me like, I don’t know. An addict.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Or who’s stupid enough to think they should buy me gifts.”  
  
“I’m not stupid,” Marty said. “And I’ve only bought you food, and I do it because I think you might be hungry.”  
  
“There you go,” Cohle said. “You thought I might be hungry.”  
  
Marty rubbed his chin. “Can you stay? For a few hours?”  
  
Cohle nodded, not looking at him. “You can fuck me if you like.”  
  
“Shut up,” Marty said. He couldn’t keep his voice exactly steady. “Not before the third date I can’t.”  
  
“Something wrong with your dick?” Cohle asked, but he sounded hoarse and relieved and just goddamn tired. He was taking drags from the cigarette in a slow rhythm like he had hard time trying to remember he was supposed to be smoking.  
  
“You think you could sleep?”  
  
Cohle shook his head. “I don’t know.”  
  
“Want to take a shower?”  
  
“No,” Cohle said and frowned, “yeah. _Shit._ No, I can’t look too nice when I get back there.”  
  
“Well, that’s going to be a problem,” Marty said and took a cigarette from his hand. He hadn’t smoked in a while and couldn’t help coughing after he took a drag. But Cohle seemed to think it was funny. “You always look kind of nice, you know.”  
  
“Back to flirting?”  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
Cohle glanced at him and took his cigarette back. His shoulder was almost brushing against Marty’s but not quite. “No, it’s fine. Obviously. Maybe I could take a quick shower.”  
  
“Okay,” Marty said.  
  
Cohle left the bathroom door unlocked. Marty sat on the edge of the bed and panicked a little while listening to the water falling on the floor. He didn’t have a goddamn clue what was happening anymore, and it was more than ten years since he’d been with a man, had to be, because it had been before Maggie. And when he thought about Maggie, he felt both worse and better and couldn’t make sense of either feeling. It didn’t matter anyway, because he wasn’t going to sleep with Cohle, not tonight, when the man was high on something and was looking at Marty like he thought Marty was the only person who wasn’t going to kick him on the face or something like that. And then he panicked a little more, because what if he was just that kind of a man – what if he just wanted something of Cohle like apparently everyone else did, and didn’t bother to ask what Cohle wanted.  
  
“I can lend you something if you like,” he said, when Cohle came from the shower, stood at the bathroom door with a towel wrapped around his waist. He looked lost.  
  
“No, you can’t,” Cohle said. “I can’t go back wearing someone else’s clothes. Sure you don’t want me naked after all?”  
  
Marty licked his lips. “I just like your style so much.”  
  
“Alright,” Cohle said and went back to the bathroom. When he came back again, he was wearing boxers and his black tank top. He smelled of soap and the clothes smelled of cigarette and motor oil and booze and sweat. Marty ate a few crackers, watching him as he climbed onto the bed with his bare feet and long fucking legs with scars in odd places, like the one on his ankle.  
  
“You heard of your girl?” Cohle asked.  
  
“My wife.” Marty cleared his throat. “I don’t remember what I told you.”  
  
“That she threw you out because you were being a dick.”  
  
“Well…” He pushed the sheets aside and lay down on the bed. Cohle stared at him for a few seconds and then lay down next to him. He thought he could feel the mattress moving with Cohle’s breaths, but that had to be just his imagination. “She talks to me about the kids. But she still thinks I’m an asshole.”  
  
“A clever woman,” Cohle said, staring at the ceiling.  
  
“Yeah,” Marty said, “the best. I can’t think about life without her. But, you know, I was a lying piece of shit. She’s right about that. I love her, though.”  
  
“The same old tale,” Cohle said.  
  
Marty glanced at him. “How about you?”  
  
“What about me?”  
  
“Do you… Or do you like women, at all?”  
  
Cohle was quiet for a moment, then took a deep breath. “I like women. Had one, too. A long time ago.”  
  
“What happened?”  
  
Cohle closed his eyes. “Our child died.”  
  
Marty swallowed but what was in his throat was stuck. “Bloody hell. I’m… sorry.”  
  
“Yeah,” Cohle said in a blank voice. “Talk to me about something. Something else.”  
  
Marty talked to him about sports. He had a feeling that the topic didn’t make him seem more attractive to Cohle, but he already had the man in his bed, so he wasn’t too worried. He told Cohle about the games he’d been watching lately. At some point, he realized Cohle had fallen asleep.  
  
He woke up late in the morning in an empty bed. He was still wearing his t-shirt inside-out, the sheets smelled of Cohle’s clothes, and the box of crackers was gone.  
  
  
**  
  
  
He spent two days worrying about Cohle and wondering what the hell was wrong with him. He called Quesada and kept talking about Cohle until Quesada promised he’d see what could be done. After the phone call he felt good for maybe half an hour before he started thinking about Ginger for some reason. He kind of wanted to kill Ginger, which was a bit odd, because he knew nothing of the man. He didn’t even know exactly what was Ginger’s deal with Cohle. Maybe this meant that he was jealous of Cohle, which was just goddamn ridiculous, or should have been. But he had always been of a jealous type. When he had been younger, he had thought it was manly. Then Maggie had told him plenty of times that it wasn’t and at least not in the good way.  
  
The tricky thing was not to think about why he was being jealous of Cohle. It wasn’t exactly surprising that he wanted to sleep with Cohle. There had been men he had liked that way before. Not in a while, but then again, maybe he’d become picky. And Cohle was special. Cohle was like no one else he’d ever met and pretty as hell. Of course he wanted to fuck Cohle. And of course he wanted Cohle to get away from the goddamn undercover job, because it had obviously been going on for too long. But the rest of it, that didn’t make sense.  
  
He called Quesada again and Quesada told him to stop worrying about Cohle and worry about his job instead. But he couldn’t do that. He talked to the kids on the phone and afterwards felt hollow with from how much he was missing them. Then he thought about Cohle’s kid. He couldn’t fall asleep, then had bad dreams he couldn’t remember after waking up and drove to the cafeteria nearby for breakfast. And the next day was pretty much the same.  
  
  
**  
  
  
When Cohle came to his motel room again, it was a little before midnight and he was sitting on the bed, watching clumsy porn from the tiny television and trying to decide whether he ought to do something about it or not. He wasn’t feeling exactly horny, but he was extremely bored. Then someone knocked on the door and he took his gun and opened it, and Cohle walked in and glanced at the television.  
  
“Really?”  
  
“No,” Marty said and switched off the damn thing. At least he still had his boxers on.  
  
“This thing between you and me,” Cohle said and stopped in the middle of the room, resting his hands on his hips, “I don’t think it’s going to work, if you’re into stuff like that.”  
  
“It’s not like there was much to choose from,” Marty said. “Everything alright?”  
  
Cohle nodded. “Yeah. Ginger’s going to introduce me to Ledoux.”  
  
“What? Really? That’s –“  
  
“Yeah,” Cohle said again, almost smiled and took a deep breath instead. “The bastard thinks we’re going to get rich.”  
  
“And when –“  
  
“I don’t know. Keep your phone charged. Might happen quickly.”  
  
Marty nodded. “Great. So, you’re alright?”  
  
“I already told you that,” Cohle said, watching him carefully. “Have you been bored or something?”  
  
“Shut up,” Marty said. “I was worried.”  
  
Cohle just stared at him.  
  
“I know I’m not supposed to be,” Marty said, “but I can’t help it. Anyway, are you hungry? And can you stay? Does Ginger –“  
  
“Ginger thinks your name is Annie,” Cohle said, rubbing the side of his nose. “He’s probably going to try to visit you but not before we meet with Ledoux, I think. He wouldn’t want to piss me off before that. It’s a good thing you aren’t going to be around afterwards.”  
  
Marty cleared his throat. “So, he doesn’t mind that you come to see me.”  
  
“He thinks it’s funny,” Cohle said and sat down in the only chair in the room, “you know.”  
  
“What?”  
  
Cohle glanced at him. “That Annie thinks I’m all hers when Ginger just had me.”  
  
“Just had –“  
  
“I hope you realize that it’s fucking obvious that you’re jealous,” Cohle said, staring at him now. “It’s all over your face.”  
  
“I’m not jealous,” Marty said and took a deep breath, then sat down on the edge of the bed. “That’d be absurd.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“I don’t understand why you tell me this stuff.”  
  
“I tell you because you want me to,” Cohle said and lit the cigarette. “Do you have anything to eat?”  
  
“Chocolate,” Marty said and handed it over to Cohle. “We could go for breakfast tomorrow. If you can stay.”  
  
“I guess. Depends on how you behave.”  
  
“Just tell me what you want.”  
  
Cohle shook his head. He looked like he couldn’t decide if he was eating the chocolate or smoking. “Nothing special.”  
  
Later, Cohle took a shower and Marty switched the television on, but the porn hadn’t got any better and he didn’t have much energy for anything else. He let some kind of a talk show go on at the background and waited. Maybe Cohle would actually stay for the night and they would go for the breakfast and he could order something Cohle would like. Maybe pancakes again. It’d be great.  
  
“The porn not doing it for you anymore?” Cohle asked, pushing the bathroom door open.  
  
Marty opened his mouth and then closed it again. There was a spot on Cohle’s left side that looked like it was only now turning into a bruise. “What’s that?”  
  
“Nothing,” Cohle said. “I could use a clean pair of boxers.”  
  
Marty found him a pair. “It’s not nothing. Ginger did that?”  
  
“Just a little bit of foreplay,” Cohle said, hung the towel on the hook on the bathroom wall and put the boxers on. Marty tried not to stare and failed. “You should see him. I got my elbow on his cheek.”  
  
“That looks like it hurts.”  
  
“It does,” Cohle said and brushed his fingers against the spot on his ribs. “So be careful about that.”  
  
“What?”  
  
Cohle took a deep breath and then walked to Marty, stopped at his face and just stared at him.  
  
“Cohle –,” Marty said and then thought about something. “Rustin –“  
  
Cohle snorted.  
  
“What?”  
  
“No one calls me that.”  
  
“I’m not going to call you Crash.” Marty bit his lip. “And I’m not going to call you Cohle if we’re going to fuck.”  
  
Cohle looked at him for a long while. “You could call me Rust.”  
  
“Rust?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Alright,” Marty said and looked up at him. “Rust –“  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”  
  
“That’s obvious,” Rust said. “Don’t worry. Apparently I’ve got a thing for it.”  
  
“Great,” Marty said. “The thing is that I haven’t really done this in a long time.”  
  
“Done what? Fucked an undercover cop?”  
  
“Slept with a man.”  
  
Rust watched him, his head tilted to the side. “It’s not so different.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“I don’t want to be like –“  
  
“Shut up,” Rust said, reached to Marty and pushed his fingers under the waistband of Marty’s boxers. “You won’t be. I’ll tell you what I want of you and you’ll do your best. Like a gentleman.”  
  
Oh, _shit_ , Rust’s fingers – “Yeah.”  
  
“Alright?” Rust said and tugged Marty’s boxers to his knees.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Close your eyes,” Rust said.  
  
But Marty couldn’t keep his eyes closed for long. They ended up on the bed, and maybe he kept saying Rust’s name when the man jerked him off, and maybe he clung into Rust’s shoulders and pushed his fingers into Rust’s hair over and over again, and maybe he said something quite stupid about how pretty Rust was, but Rust didn’t seem to mind any of that. He held Marty on the edge for a while until Marty was beginning to think he’d lose his mind and kiss Rust or something, but finally Rust let him come and everything was alright.  
  
He petted Rust’s hair and said more stupid thing about Rust’s face, when Rust climbed onto him and told him to get his hand on Rust’s dick. He did just that. For a while. But he ended up leaning down in between Rust’s sprawled legs, his mouth on Rust’s cock, his fingers digging into Rust’s hips, Rust’s hands in his hair, his ears ringing, his jaw aching, his thoughts a goddamn mess, and his heart fucked.  
  
“I didn’t ask you to do that,” Rust said a little later. They were still in the bed but there were a few inches of empty space in between them, and Marty didn’t know what to do with it.  
  
“Yeah, I know,” he said. “Didn’t you like it?”  
  
“Fuck you,” Rust said. Clearly he had liked it.  
  
In the morning, Marty woke up when Rust was pulling his own clothes on again. His movements were tense and he didn’t say anything when Marty sat up on the bed. Marty asked about the breakfast and he said they couldn’t do it, too dangerous, he couldn’t be seen with Marty now. But he would come back if he got a chance.  
  
  
**  
  
  
Rust came back the next night. Marty let him in, and he walked around the room, put his gun on the bedside table next to Marty’s and shrugged his jacket off. His eyes were wide and he didn’t seem to be able to look at one spot for more than a second, and when Marty walked to him, he put a hand on the low of Marty’s back and drew him closer.  
  
“Alright,” Marty said and grabbed his shirt, “alright, this is… what’s going on?”  
  
“Nothing,” Rust said, his eyes finally settling on Marty.  
  
“Bullshit,” Marty said. He could feel Rust’s cock pressing against the crook of his thigh, half-hard, but he could also feel Rust’s hand shaking a little against his back. “Talk to me, Rust.”  
  
“I shouldn’t have come,” Rust said, let go of Marty and tried to step back. Marty grabbed his wrist and pulled him back.  
  
“You’re already here. Just fucking talk to me, man.”  
  
Rust tilted his head back. “Thought we might fuck.”  
  
“Yeah,” Marty said slowly, “we can do that, it’s just –“  
  
Rust kissed him on the mouth.  
  
“Fucking hell, Rust –“  
  
And then he kissed Rust back, only he had a feeling that Rust didn’t give a shit about whether he was being kissed back or not. Maybe he couldn’t tell the difference. He put both his hands on Marty’s neck and kept on kissing him – too much teeth, too much everything, and his cock pressing against Marty’s hip, which probably explained the rush.  
  
Marty pushed a hand in between their bodies, grabbed Rust’s shirt and pushed him back a little. Rust breathed in and out and let Marty hold him back without a struggle. “Alright,” Rust said. It sounded like a conclusion.  
  
“Shut the fuck up. I feel like you’re kissing me to stop yourself from falling over the edge or something.”  
  
Rust blinked. Oh, bloody _hell._  
  
“Okay,” Marty said and let go of Rust’s shirt but grabbed his hand instead. Rust let Marty take his hand but didn’t do anything about it. Marty cleared his throat twice. “Well, I suppose that’s as good a reason as any. Just, I feel like maybe we should… slow down a little, talk, or… are you hungry?”  
  
“I’ve got condoms,” Rust said.  
  
Marty stared at him. “You’ve got condoms.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“When I said that we should talk…” He took a deep breath and pulled Rust a little closer. He was still kind of holding Rust’s hand, but alright, Rust had long lean fingers and his hand was warm and a little sweaty. And Marty had a feeling that if he let go, Rust would either jump into kissing him again or disappear. _Fuck._ “You’ve got condoms?”  
  
“Yeah, Marty,” Rust said, pronouncing his name carefully. “I’ve got condoms.”  
  
“And why would you –“ Marty paused and bit his lip.  
  
“Yeah,” Rust said, “why _would_ I –“  
  
“Shut up. I’m not that stupid, it’s just… I don’t think I’m going to –”  
  
“Bullshit,” Rust said, raised his free hand and pushed his fingers through Marty’s hair. “You’ve been staring at me like that since the moment you saw me.”  
  
“Like that –“  
  
“Yeah,” Rust said. He was petting Marty’s hair now like there was nothing else in the world, nowhere to hurry to, and Marty couldn’t fucking _think._ “I don’t need to talk about this,” Rust said, his voice quiet now. He was saying everything carefully like he needed to concentrate or else he’d stumble. “I don’t need you to tell me that we’re going to get a house in the suburbs and a dog afterwards. I brought you condoms. Just take one and fuck me.”  
  
Marty swallowed. “It’s been ten years since I…”  
  
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll go gentle.”  
  
“You’ll go gentle.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“And this is not… “ He couldn’t fucking figure out a way to say it. He wasn’t even exactly sure what he was thinking about, not with Rust’s fingers touching his scalp. “You aren’t just using me to, I don’t know, hurt yourself more or something?”  
  
“No,” Rust said, not entirely convincingly.  
  
It took ages. They kissed first and Marty was pretty sure Rust was letting him go slow because he knew Marty couldn’t speed up or he’d lose his fucking nerve. He pushed his hands under Rust’s shirt and ran his palms up and down the map of warm skin and a few old scars, pressed his thumb lightly against the bruise Ginger had done yesterday, kissed Rust when the man flinched under his touch, thought vaguely that maybe he wasn’t any better, then dismissed the thought. He was a good man. And Rust had come to him willingly _because_ he was a good man.  
  
He kissed Rust until he couldn’t take it anymore, and he didn’t know how Rust could tell, but he tugged Marty’s boxers down his thighs and walked him to the bed and pushed him a little. The sheets had already got cold. He got rid of Rust’s clothes as quickly as he could, but then what was left was Rust leaning naked over him, and the packet of condoms, and his own breathing that seemed to fill the whole room. When he held his breath for a moment, all he could hear was his own heart and air conditioning. Rust grabbed his sides and shifted them around so that it was Marty who was on, his knees digging into the mattress in between Rust’s thighs. Rust pushed a pillow under his own ass, took a condom and gave it Marty.  
  
“No,” he said, pressing the flat of palm against Rust’s chest where he could feel him breathing, “no, fingers first.”  
  
“Really,” Rust said, but his eyes were going back and forth on Marty’s face. “Still going for romance? Now?”  
  
“You don’t know how pretty you are,” Marty said. He didn’t know if it was the right answer but at least Rust looked surprised.  
  
It had been ages since Marty had done anything like this. He didn’t remember anymore. His fingers were clumsy, he wanted to keep asking for instructions, he wanted to ask if Rust was alright, if Marty was hurting him, if he wanted to take a break, if there was something Marty could do differently, if he could be more gentle – but he would only sound nervous and Rust would laugh at him and besides, he kind of could tell from the way Rust was taking his fingers in that this wasn’t too much, that this was barely anything. He wanted to kiss Rust and he did. He wanted to tell Rust what the man looked like, lying there, and he did, and Rust laughed at him but in a good way. His eyes on Marty weren’t laughing.  
  
And when Marty finally put the condom on, Rust didn’t say a word about the time he had to take to get his dick hard again, didn’t point out that maybe this was a bit much for Marty, definitely out of his league, and that Marty didn’t have a fucking clue what he was doing here. His arms were shaking, air-conditioning was too loud for some fucking reason, someone started a car at the parking lot and the headlights came faint through the windows. He couldn’t get close enough to Rust, couldn’t get his legs right, didn’t want to look like he didn’t know how to do this, but Rust was saying his name now in a quiet hoarse voice. That helped.  
  
“Need help?” Rust asked, wrapping his fingers loosely around Marty’s wrist.  
  
“No,” Marty said and took a deep breath, “ _fuck_ , this is… I’ve never, like this, you on your back –“  
  
“I wanted to see your face,” Rust said like it was the simplest thing. “Just come closer, man.”  
  
“I don’t know where to put my fucking legs.”  
  
“Just come closer,” Rust said and reached to him, ran his thumb down Marty’s ass before he pulled Marty closer. “Like this.”  
  
“I don’t think –“  
  
“You’re sweet,” Rust said, took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “The sweetest asshole who’s ever fucked me. Come on, man. Do it.”  
  
Marty did it.  
  
He said some things to Rust, because alright, he was a talker in bed. He liked to say things. But Rust didn’t seem to mind. He didn’t keep his eyes closed for long, and then he just kept staring at Marty like he was trying to catalogue this or something, trying to see through Marty’s brain, which Marty hoped he didn’t, because all that he was thinking about was how pretty Rust was, and how good it felt, how he hadn’t remembered it’d be like this, fucking someone in the ass, he hadn’t remembered _at all_ , and Rust was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen, in a manly and frightening way of course, but that only made it better. He wanted to make this good for Rust, he wanted this to be the best fucking sex Rust had ever had, but that seemed kind of impossible, realistically speaking, because he couldn’t fucking concentrate and he knew he wasn’t going to last and he couldn’t find Rust’s goddamn prostate, for fuck’s sake, he just kept trying and trying and Rust was the hottest fucking thing he’d ever seen and he was going to come -  
  
“It’s alright,” Rust said, “it’s alright, you can –“  
  
“I can’t,” Marty said, “I haven’t… you haven’t…” And then he came.  
  
When he could breathe again, he rolled onto his back next to Rust. He couldn’t hear his heartbeat inside his head anymore and his legs had probably been shaking for a while. He should exercise more. “Sorry.”  
  
“Shut up,” Rust said. He had a hand on his dick but he wasn’t doing much with it. “The shit you kept saying –“  
  
“Can’t help it.” Marty took a deep breath. “It’s your fault, too. No need to look so fucking good all the time.”  
  
“Fucking ridiculous. But a nice change.”  
  
Marty bit his lip. “You didn’t get off yet.”  
  
Rust snorted. “And I’ve been worried about your skills as a detective. My bad, man.”  
  
“Fuck off,” Marty said and got rid of the condom. It was trickier than he had remembered. “Shit.”  
  
“Careful, there,” Rust said, “don’t break your dick.”  
  
“Asshole.”  
  
“Yeah.” Rust stared at him as he tied the condom in a knot, threw it at the garbage bin and missed. Well, he would get it later. He had a feeling that Rust was laughing at him, but when he turned back to look at the man, Rust’s eyes were all serious.  
  
“I’ll be better at the next time,” he told Rust. “I’m a quick learner.”  
  
“Maybe I should draw you a map,” Rust said in an easy voice. He looked oddly calm for a man who was lying naked and sprawled on the bed with his dick still hard.  
  
“So,” Marty said, “I’ve got fingers.”  
  
“I’ve noticed.”  
  
“Maybe you could draw me that map now,” Marty said. “Or I could just jerk you off. Or blow you. Just tell me.”  
  
“Is this a date?” Rust asked. His voice was low, but his eyes were intent. “I get to order what I like and you’re going to pay?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Okay,” Rust said. “Then, I think, your fingers.”  
  
“Okay. Just –“  
  
“I’ll try to tell you,” Rust said.  
  
It was much easier to concentrate now when he had two fingers inside Rust and Rust’s cock in his other hand and Rust was telling him what to do, and his own head was still lazy and content and he wasn’t going anywhere. It took him a while to realize that Rust wanted him to talk but couldn’t ask for it, and then he felt a bit funny about saying all those things when he wasn’t half-out of his mind for wanting to get off, but alright. And Rust didn’t seem to need variation or anything. It was enough that Marty told him he was good and pretty, all over again, with his fingertips finally brushing against the right spot inside Rust. Good and pretty, good and pretty, and Rust covered Marty’s hand on his dick with his own and took the lead there, which was good, and Marty told him he was being so good, so good, and he was the prettiest man Marty had ever seen, yeah, he was good, and everything would be fine, Marty would see to that, and that was when Rust came in his hand.  
  
Marty pulled his fingers carefully off, got out of the bed and went to the bathroom, washed his hands, then took a piss and only realized after that he hadn’t managed to close the door, but what the fuck. Rust was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling, not looking offended. Marty brought him a glass of water and then got one for himself, picked the condom from the floor and took it to the garbage bin in the bathroom.  
  
Rust didn’t say anything when Marty wiped him clean with a damp towel. But when Marty got to the bed, Rust made room for him and didn’t protest when he pressed himself against Rust’s side, his arm draped over Rust’s chest.  
  
“Should’ve guessed,” Rust said. “You’re a cuddler.”  
  
“Damn right.”  
  
“I can’t stay,” Rust said, “not for long.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“You still think you’re getting back together with your wife?”  
  
“Yeah,” Marty lied.  
  
“Good,” Rust said. “You aren’t expecting anything of me then.”  
  
“Of course not.”  
  
Rust kissed the top of his head. “Good.”  
  
“Yeah,” Marty said and wriggled closer to him.  
  
It was still dark when Marty woke up. Rust had already put his clothes on and was looking through the gap in the curtains.  
  
“Hey,” Marty said. “Something wrong?”  
  
“No,” Rust said, walked to him and hovered there for a second before leaning down over him and kissing him on the mouth. He tasted of booze. “I’m going now.”  
  
“Alright,” Marty said. “Be careful.”  
  
“You’ve got to start dating nicer men,” Rust said, kissed him again and then left.  
  
  
**  
  
  
When Rust came back the next night, he had a black eye and he wouldn’t say anything about it. They had an argument about that and then another about Rust wanting Marty to fuck him against the wall. Marty felt like he lost both arguments, even though when the fucking happened half an hour later, it happened in the bed and he was as nice about it as he could, despite Rust’s complaints. There was something in Rust’s eyes that seemed a little off even though he said he was sober and that Marty could go harder and that he wasn’t going to fucking break, Marty didn’t have a fucking clue about things he was capable of, he wasn’t one of those boys Marty had fucked in his dorm room in the college, which was kind of offensive but also true. The only times Marty had fucked a man, someone else than Rust, had been in his dorm room in the college, his head hazy with alcohol and nagging doubt that maybe there was some kind of internal panic he was trying to mute.  
  
But he wasn’t going to tell Rust that. He finished too quickly again and didn’t have time to catch his breath before Rust had already jerked himself off, and then he got rid of the condom and felt like the world’s biggest fool for a second before Rust told him to get to the bed and hugged him.  
  
“Sorry,” he said.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Rust said. “It’s been a bad night.”  
  
“Yeah? Is –“  
  
“Shut up.”  
  
“Your eye, was it –“  
  
Rust kissed him until he was short of breath. “Had a fight with Ginger,” Rust said after, brushing his thumb against the side of Marty’s face. “The bastard’s jealous.”  
  
“This thing with Ginger,” Marty said and cleared his throat, “is he making you do it or –“  
  
“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Rust said, his voice easy like trying to explain the world to a kid or something.  
  
“But if he’s making you do it –“  
  
“Need someone on my side,” Rust said. “And usually I like the sex. Wouldn’t do it if I hated it.”  
  
“So, you like…”  
  
“He’s using me,” Rust said, stroking Marty’s hair, “I’m using him. It’s not a romance.”  
  
“I didn’t think that.”  
  
“Yeah, you did,” Rust said, “you goddamn idiot, you were worried that maybe I’m in love with another man.”  
  
“Bullshit.”  
  
“People like you,” Rust said, “I can’t understand how you even stay alive. Every feeling you have, you think it’s genuine. No instinct of self-preservation at all. I bet you break your heart every time you watch the nature channel.”  
  
“And you’re so tough.”  
  
Rust took a deep breath. “Not at all.”  
  
“No?”  
  
“I broke myself once,” Rust said in a distant voice, “couldn’t fix it, so I’ve been walking around broken ever since. Had to wear an armor.”  
  
Marty swallowed. “Want to talk about it?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Your –“  
  
“No.”  
  
“I can’t even imagine.”  
  
“Of course you can’t imagine,” Rust said. “There’s no fucking way. Stop talking, I want to sleep.”  
  
“You’re the one who’s talking.”  
  
“No, you are.”  
  
“I’m not like that, Rust. I don’t cry when I watch the nature channel.”  
  
“Never said you’d cry,” Rust said.  
  
  
**  
  
  
The next day, Marty heard nothing of Rust. He spent the whole day trying to distract himself somehow and it went very badly. Apparently he couldn’t stop thinking about Rust now.  
  
Then early in the morning, he woke up to his phone ringing. He said his name and Rust told him an address.  
  
“One o’clock in the afternoon,” Rust said, “today. We’re going to meet his cooking partner. Follow him when he leaves.”  
  
“Alright,” Marty said, but Rust had already hung up.  
  
  
**  
  
  
He parked his car across the street from the bar where Rust was supposed to meet with Ledoux’ partner. Then he waited. He had already called Quesada and there was back-up, but not on sight. He had been pretty determinant about that. If Ledoux’ partner or Ginger realized the police was involved, Rust would be the one with a bullet in his head, and Marty wasn’t going to accept that.  
  
He tried to read the newspaper but couldn’t make sense of the words, then just checked over and over again that he had his gun ready. He had never shot at anyone and wasn’t planning to start today, but there was no fucking he was going to let anything bad happen to Rust. Rust had had his share and more.  
  
Finally Rust came with a bald man who had a long beard that looked like it was braided or something. Probably Ginger. Marty was definitely better-looking, no competition about that. Unless Rust preferred the beard thing. But there was no fucking way, and that thing had to be unpractical as well. And besides, Marty could grow a beard, couldn’t he? He frowned at the rear-view window. Surely he could grow a beard.  
  
He watched as Rust went in with Ginger. They didn’t speak and didn’t walk too close to each other, either, but then again, they wouldn’t, not in a public place. And Rust had said it wasn’t a romance. Marty leaned back against the seat, and then, when Rust and Ginger had been in the bar for maybe five minutes, someone else parked a car next to the red truck Rust had been driving: a big man, shabby, long hair, a beard, glanced around before going in but didn’t look twice at Marty’s car. Great.  
  
Marty kept a hand on his gun, but a moment later, the same man walked out of the bar, glanced around again and started driving. Marty waited a little and then started the car. Rust and Quesada would both kill him if he followed a wrong guy, but this didn’t seem like a busy place. The roads were almost empty, so he stayed back and followed the guy from the distance, and then after ten minutes or so Rust called him.  
  
“Did you get him?”  
  
“Yeah,” Marty said, “yeah, thanks. You alright?”  
  
“Yeah,” Rust said, but there was something odd about his voice. “I’m coming with you.”  
  
Marty blinked. “You’re coming with me where?”  
  
“To get him.”  
  
Oh, bloody hell. “Where’s Ginger?”  
  
“Dropped him off and told him I’m going to meet my woman. He’s going to kill me later.”  
  
Marty squeezed the wheel. “Rust –“  
  
“This guy, Dewall,” Rust said, his voice steadier now like he was trying to keep it together, “he didn’t even think about it. Maybe he came to meet us because Ginger asked, people usually do what Ginger asks of them, but still… I didn’t like him.”  
  
“You didn’t like Dewall?”  
  
“He said something. I didn’t like it. Something’s wrong. I’m coming with you.”  
  
“Rust,” Marty said and cleared his throat, “I’ve got a whole gang of back-up.”  
  
“Where’re you now?”  
  
Marty told him.  
  
“My guess is that they’ve got a place somewhere in the woods. If you take the whole fucking squad there, they’re going to hear you coming and fuck off.”  
  
“I’m going to figure it out.”  
  
“I’m coming there,” Rust said. “I won’t read in the newspaper tomorrow that they shot you in the face.”  
  
_In the face._ Goddamn. “Rust, for fuck’s sake –“  
  
“I’m coming,” Rust said and hung up.  
  
  
**  
  
  
Later, he thought about it and decided that he couldn’t have made Rust change his mind about coming, no matter how many times he would’ve told the idiot not to. And it was true that at first, he was goddamn happy Rust was there with him. The back-up wasn’t there yet and he worried he’d lose Dewall if he waited, but Rust came and knew how to move in the woods and held his gun with a kind of an easy determination that both comforted Marty and freaked him out a little.  
  
But then they got to the place and Rust told him to go back and wait for the back-up, and he thought about if for maybe three seconds. He wasn’t going to let Rust do stupid things alone. And he thought about Dora Lange and Rianne Olivier and how Rust had said there could be other victims, and then he followed Rust.  
  
What he remembered later was the smell: the grass, the hot day of early summer, something rotting that he couldn’t see, everything he didn’t want to think about in the shed where he found the kids, the blood on the ground, tobacco and gasoline in Rust’s clothes when Reggie Ledoux had shot three bullets at Rust and Marty had shot Ledoux in the head and Dewall had been blown to pieces and the back-up squad was running to them and everyone was shouting and Marty’s ears were ringing and he was holding Rust’s face in between his hands and saying things he couldn’t make sense of and the stain of dark red blood on Rust’s side was growing and growing and growing.  
  
  
**  
  
  
Marty was just about to leave when Rust opened his eyes.  
  
“Brought you flowers,” he told Rust and nodded at the side table. He had got the flowers from the supermarket yesterday and they were a bit wilted already, but it didn’t matter because Rust didn’t even glance at them, only stared at Marty like he didn’t think Marty was real. “You alright?”  
  
“Fucking great,” Rust said with a voice so hoarse it was a goddamn miracle Marty could make sense of the words.  
  
“Yeah,” he said, “don’t talk. You sound like a dead man and it’s a bit upsetting.”  
  
“What’re you doing here?”  
  
“Just hanging around. I like the atmosphere.” He bit his lip. He hated hospitals. He hated the smell and the colors and all those machines Rust was attached to. “Also, it’s not like I’ve got much to do. I got a week off. Apparently I looked like I needed a vacation.”  
  
“They don’t know the half of it.”  
  
“Listen,” Marty said and took a deep breath. “They found Ginger.”  
  
“Did they now?” Rust asked. He looked tired and like he was in pain, but then again, the doctors had dug three bullets out of him just a few days ago. “How’s he?”  
  
“Alive,” Marty said. “Apparently someone had wrapped him up with tape and left in a ditch.”  
  
Rust was staring at him. “Sounds unpleasant.”  
  
“You said you didn’t think you could get out of it.”  
  
“No,” Rust said slowly, “no, I wasn’t counting on it.”  
  
“But you beat Ginger up and left him in a ditch.”  
  
Rust took a deep breath.  
  
“I don’t know what happened between you two,” Marty said, “I don’t know that at all, and to be perfectly honest I’m feeling kind of good that you don’t seem to be missing him much. But seems like funny thing to do if you thought you were going to go back. Unless you had something else in mind. Another way out.”  
  
“I wasn’t trying to get shot or anything,” Rust said, and Marty kind of wanted to punch him for saying it like that, easily, when Marty had been thinking it over for days. Maybe Rust hadn’t followed him to Ledoux’s place because he had wanted to help Marty, maybe he had tried to fix all his problems for good.  
  
“Really?” Marty asked. His voice was trembling, but he couldn’t help it.  
  
“I didn’t think much,” Rust said. “I started driving with Ginger but I was worried about you. I tried to get rid of him, but he was suspicious, so we pulled over at the side road to fuck and then when he got started, I just knocked him out. I meant to call someone afterwards, to let them know where to find him. But, well, turns out I was unconscious for some time.”  
  
“You weren’t trying to kill yourself.”  
  
“No,” Rust said. “Don’t look at me like that.”  
  
“Don’t you fucking tell me what to do.”  
  
Rust smiled just a little. Marty didn’t smile back, because he was still kind of angry.  
  
“And you got shot, you fucking asshole. Three bullets. They’re saying you could’ve died.”  
  
“Yeah,” Rust said, watching him. “Very unfortunate. Ruined my best jacket.”  
  
Marty shook his head and opened his mouth.  
  
“But I’m alive,” Rust cut in, “against all odds. And you seem to be as well, which kind of was the whole point.”  
  
“Don’t talk to me like that.”  
  
“Like what?”  
  
“I can’t be pissed at you if you talk like that.”  
  
Rust took a deep breath and then winced with pain.  
  
“You’re in pain,” Marty said. “Should I call –“  
  
“Stop fussing. So, you brought me flowers.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“A fucking miracle,” Rust said, “that you just happened to know that I like flowers.” Then something shifted in his eyes. “Apparently I’m going to be at a mental hospital for a while after they let me out of this place.”  
  
“Yeah, I heard,” Marty said and bit his lip. “I tried to tell them that you don’t need it but –“  
  
“I’ve been using coke for years,” Rust said, “any place where I can’t get my hands on it is going to be good for a while. And it’s not like I don’t have problems.”  
  
“Yeah, well –“  
  
“Seems like I got out after all.”  
  
Marty nodded. “Yeah.”  
  
“You told me so.”  
  
“Yeah,” he said, “well, I didn’t tell you to play a hero for me. You don’t have a fucking clue what it was like, to have you bleeding out on me.”  
  
“I wasn’t playing a hero,” Rust said. “I was a bit too high for that.”  
  
“You goddamn –“  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Marty shook his head. “I can’t believe I got you flowers.”  
  
“Yeah,” Rust said, his voice perfectly serious, “me neither. You back with your girl or what?”  
  
“My wife,” Marty said. “No. We aren’t getting back together.”  
  
Rust stared at him. “Alright.”  
  
“I think I’m going to be buying you more flowers. If you don’t mind.”  
  
“No,” Rust said slowly, “no, I don’t mind. I like flowers.”  
  
“Great,” Marty said.  
  
“Great,” Rust said, watched Marty silently for a while and then fell asleep.  
  
  
**  
  
  
Marty rented a small house with a big yard. The house was nice enough but there was a lot of grass. He just wished Rust liked mowing a lawn.  
  
That was how he realized he had started thinking that Rust would be spending a lot of time with him, once they would let the man out of the mental hospital. Marty had told Rust he would come to see him there, and Rust had told him not to come, but he had a feeling that Rust didn’t want to be seen like that. He didn’t know what _like that_ was and he was a bit curious, but it helped that Rust called him once in a while. He always flirted at the phone and Rust didn’t tell him to fuck off, so all in all, he was pretty optimistic about this thing.  
  
_This thing_ , he thought, was that he wanted something with Rust, something that would involve sex and kissing and dinners and staying at each other’s place and mowing a lawn together. Something like that. He wasn’t sure what to call it and he didn’t much care. He just wanted to be with Rust.  
  
  
**  
  
  
After three months, Rust called Marty that he was out and staying in the motel at the town.  
  
“In my town?” Marty asked. “What the fuck are you doing in the motel? You should be here.”  
  
“Didn’t want to presume.”  
  
“I’ve got the whole goddamn house for myself,” Marty said. “Where’re you? I’ll come pick you up.”  
  
“I have a car.” Rust was quiet for a moment. “You sure?”  
  
“Yeah, I’m sure.”  
  
“Alright,” Rust said. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” Then he hung up.  
  
Marty ordered two pizzas, loaded the dishwasher, picked the lonely socks from the living room floor, brushed his teeth and put on a clean t-shirt. He was about to change the sheets, when he saw Rust’s red truck at the driveway.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://toyhto.tumblr.com)


End file.
